Thereís a disturbing relation between intellectual capability and marijuana use, and I donít mean that in a positive way. Studies have shown an unquestionable link between a drop in intellectual capacity and marijuana use, and most disturbingly, the earlier a person started using marijuana in the course of their life, the greater the drop.

The largest drops in IQ were observed in those who had started using marijuana during their teens
These disturbing findings make it crucially important that we discourage marijuana use during the teen years. There are other disturbing trends in marijuana use, one of which is, that marijuana has massively increased in potency over the last two or three decades.

This means that the chances of addiction among users are considerably higher than they were in, for example, the nineteen-eighties. The amount of THC (the active element of marijuana) in street marijuana has jumped from three-and-a-half percent to a massive nine percent within the last fifteen years

Another disturbing trend is the number of minors being admitted to hospitals and similar centers for issues connected with marijuana abuse... and such admissions have soared by nearly two hundred percent, again, during the last fifteen years.

These figures represent a sharp contrast, because rates of admission for alcohol abuse in medical centers among minors has fallen by more than half in the same period of time.

Deadly contaminants
Worst of all, there is a definite trend for marijuana sold on the street to be seriously contaminated, and for these contaminants to often be injurious to the health in either the short- or long-term.

Since marijuana is sold by weight, dealers on the street will often add various contaminants to increase the weight of the marijuana. Contaminants can include seriously hazardous materials such as glass beads, or even sand.

When marijuana with these impurities is smoked, these heated contaminants may be inhaled into the lungs, causing inflammation or serious scarring of lung tissue. No studies have been done to test the health effects of daily usage of contaminated marijuana.

Legalization is no guarantee against human greed
Remember that even if marijuana is legalized, these laws will not guarantee that marijuana sold on the street will be safe from contaminants, or of a level of quality sufficient to not be overtly hazardous to a personís health. Similarly, as soaring levels of THC in marijuana pose a serious threat of addiction, laws should also standardize levels of THC to those that are considered acceptable.

The health risks posed by marijuana are unmistakable, and legalization is certainly not always the best option.

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